Rachel Stamp at the Astoria, for being awful (it was a friend's birthday) and the fact they had the balls to book a gig at the Astoria, put it on sale about 9 months in advance and they still closed the upstairs because of low ticket sales.

Or the Ordinary Boys supported by hard-Fi - Preston walked out after 2 songs because he wasn't happy about how his guitar sounded. I only went as I wanted to hang out with someone I fancied, who is now my husband so y'know, it was worth it.

The room was pretty rammed for the support act, who were a local band I'd never heard of, but pretty much everyone cleared off when they finished, leaving about 7 or 8 of us in the room. Poor Billy Mahonie, they still played a ripping set though.

I remember playing to about twelve people at the Good Ship, who were all very suportive but... about the same at the Fox & Firkin with the added bonus of a drunken old man dancing... and, er, five people at the Cross Kings, things started getting better after that though, promise!

For some reason the gig took place in a really cheesy handbag/white stilettos nightclub on the seafront. The stage was about 6ft by 6ft & in the middle of the dancefloor, surrounded by railings. About 20 people showed up, & half a dozen of them had walked out by the end of the second song (one of whom had to be restrained from attacking the band he hated them so much).

But they still gave it their all & it turned out to be an amazing gig, and I was able to hang out with Franz Treichler after the show. He shared his chips with me. Lovely fella.

Took my boy who loves them. I'm not a fan, but I honestly thought it would be entertaining. I tried to write a relatively even-handed review so I wouldn't be dismissed as a 'hater' but I'm pretty graphic in my disgust. "A wealth accumulating vacuum of cynicism." Judging by the comments, I half-succeeded.

I wrote it anonymously as I told my son I'd had a great time and didn't want him stumbling across the review and being gutted.

upstairs in the Tap and Spile, Darlington. I guess that counts as a proper gig. Me and my friend Amy were the only two paying customers. The rest of the room was the two support bands. Good on them for playing for over an hour though. We bought records because they looked sad.

i assume you mean And The Battle Is Won? There's some older ones they don't list on their discography anymore.
There have been three albums since that though, and some EPs. The second album, Embers, is a pretty incredible piece of work.

It was pretty common for indie bands to play to tiny crowds back when it was very unpopular.

In terms of vague shocks though, I remember going to see a FOTL London show just after the second record came out which baffled me. There was about a mere handful of people there yet the gigs either side of that in the capital both sold out and were at far bigger venues.

The biggest shock was maybe M.I.A. on the Kala tour at Norwich Waterfront. There was about 30 of us there and I had the whole place to dance around like a twat in. And apparently most of the tickets had been given to students on the UEA campus for free. To her credit, she still played like there were thousands of us there.

I'm not sure they'd even released any music at this stage, and the promoter just seemd to have blithely assumed they'd instantly draw a Blood Brothers-size crowd. It was so poorly attended that Johnny Whitney just got the 20 or so people there to climb over the crash barrier and played an absolutely cracking set in what was now a pretty cramped space. That is how to do it.

Probably the strangest gig I've ever been to. Desperate to sell tickets, the promoter billed him as a member of REM (which, as he had toured with them as an additional member, I guess was partly true). About 20 people turned up, half of them expecting to hear Losing My Religion et al. DJ played "Sexbomb" by Tom Jones as he came out. He abandoned the stage & spent the gig wandering from table to table serenading us all individually (even the table of drunk expat arseholes who kept shouting "Shiny Happy People" at him). Did a mix of his own songs, lots of covers, & standup routines. Started at 9.30 & was still going when I went home at 2am. What a guy.

Once saw comedy with 8 people ( In a 90 seater). It was political animal with Anday Zaltzman and Jon Oliver, in around 2002 time, soho theatre.

First comedian stuttered through his set and was clearly very upset about the crowd numbers. Last comedian did 2 minutes before leaving in a strop. But the middle comedian, before he became much bigger, was very funny, charming and connected with the audience without being put off at all.

Played in a small club, maybe capacity of 200-300, & maybe 40-50 showed up. Great gig, guitarist was playing on the bar at one point before rolling around on the floor with the bassist & various crowd members.

I saw Matt Elliott (Third Eye Foundation) at the Wheatsheaf in Oxford, and the only people there were me and my mate, the promoter and his girlfriend. To be fair to them, they put on a fucking amazing show still!

Also once my band played in Portsmouth (after we'd released our EP on a proper label and stuff) and there were 6 people there including the support band. One of the punters was only there because her first name was the same as our band name. She walked out halfway through.

I forget their name, but they were well known-ish. An American band. There were about 15 of us there, all curiously in a line in a small venue watching them go for it, not even on a stage, just on the floor. Lots of awkwardness and nodding heads, as soon as they played their last note they just packed all their stuff away in bags and fucked off.

I have also seen McLusky play to a handful of people in Cardiff many years ago, before the Do Dallas days. Once being supported by a ska band which was quite odd.

at the Thekla in bristol with about 20 people a few years ago. Really good set mind..

Went to the inbetween days of ATP a couple of years ago, so a bunch of bands - Dirty Three, lightning Bolt, Om, and there were only 30 odd people there. Butlins in winter with 30 other people is also an odd experience...

At the Junction2 in Cambridge. I dragged a couple of friends along to see 'the greatest song-writer of his generation', apart from us there were about 10 people there. He came on and muttered something about renaming the tour to 'The long dark road to oblivion'...

Came back with AMC about a year later and got a great crowd and reception, don't know what's wrong with people...

Can't have been more than 30 people there. Great gig, one of the best I've ever been to. Debuted a lot of their new songs from the new album. Crowd really got into it, despite being mostly indie types. They played for over 2 and half hours too, which was really cool considering they were probably jetlagged and had had enough by that stage.

Me and 3 mates went. When the support band were on there was only us 4 and Belinda and Deb from the band watching them, when MBV went on it was us 4 and I'm not even sure if the support band watched them.

Good gig, my ears hurt for days afterwards.

I'm sure I've been to a few equally empty gigs but that one stands out for obvious reasons.

It was my then girlfriend's birthday and she loved them. So we got tickets to go and see them. There seemed to be a bit of hype because they were the band of Desparcidos. Thought it was close to selling out.

It was not. There was at most 20 people there. And what a spectacle.

First, the lead singer came out dressed in a track suit, running on the spot and doing press ups to the Team America theme tune.

He then proceded to chat the most amount of shit ever. Including

Using his loop pedal to play Eye of the Tiger

Saying 'Sorry everyone, we are in fact, THE KILLERS!' then started playing Mr Brightside, but he faltered on one bit and he was like 'Wait, wait, I can do this' slowly picking through it

In the middle of one of their songs he screamed '9/11 REMIX!!!!!!!!!' and started shredding

When someone shouted PLAY A FUCKING SONG he replied what's that, you want to see me balance my guitar on the end of my chin. ok! Got on his knees and did so

OK! We're gonna do a little call and respond. I see Panic at the Disco are doing it and they're popular so maybe it'll make us popular. right so I say something like shotgun, and you all say something like wedding back alright? ok here we go! WHEN I SAY HOLLER - YOU SAY CAUST! HOLLER! *stunned silence*

He finished with WOO LONDON! YEAH LONDON! I'M SUPPOSED TO CARE COS IT'S LONDON RIGHT? AND YOU'RE ALL A BIG DEAL YEAH? BUT I'M SORRY, I COULDN'T GIVE A FUCk. YOU'RE NOTHING TO ME. GOODNIGHT.

They were on stage for 50 minutes. They played 6 songs amounting to about 20 minutes of music

I dont know how he managed to get so wrecked in such a short space of time, I spoke to him at the merch not too long before their set and he seemed completely sober and quite reserved, and then somehow turned into a beast

last week, upstairs at the Garage. I know they're mental and niche (look them up) but they're pretty fuckign huge in Germany. They played to about 25 people. Maybe 35 at a push. There was a mosh pit of about 4 people.

he played at Truck one year. I think the act before him was Frank Turner maybe, and he had a pretty big crowd, then everyone vanished as soon as he finished. When Walter came on there were probably only about 50 people there - pretty poor considering this is early evening on the main stage.

All my friends abandoned me to watch someone else. I was too stoned to move, so i just lay on the grass in the sun watching him play Rival Schools songs. It was pretty great.

I also think this may have been when i bumped into a diser (or she bumped into me, rather), but i was incapable of conversation and she left quite swiftly.

Think it was the same night that Guns N Roses and Deftones were playing (not together, in different venues) and there must have been about 50 people there. It was fantastic though; Matt spent the whole gig in the very sparse crowd singing at everyone.

...at a place called the London Arena in the Docklands. (whatever happened to it?)

It was an all-day 'rock' event and Nine Inch Nails were supposed to headline but cancelled on the day (their drummer got ill apparently, but this was right around the time Reznor was at his most fucked up so it might have been him being too mashed to play) meaning Ash of all people were bumped up to headliners. The promoters were actually offering a full refund if you wanted it because basically everyone was there for NIN.

I'd come all the way down from Aberdeen so went along anyway. It was a half-empty arena, actually maybe even emptier than that, and it was very, very weird being able to wander around freely in a place like that.

When Ash came on they got bottled so badly. Tim Wheeler apologised for not being NIN but this didn't stop the bottling. Poor Ash.

There were 6 people in the room, three of whom were in my friend's band (the other support band left after they played), and I got in for free.

This didn't dampen PH, though, as the guy from them kept asking if we were going to 'party' with them, 'get fucked up' and 'smoke a bunch of weed' or whatever. I think it was a Tuesday night or something.

in 2003, just found a review online (geocities!) that says there were 50 people there, including bands and staff. MASSIVELY overstating it. think there were maybe 15 people in the audience. it was brilliant.

All came through Wolverhampton at some point to play to me, my girlfriend and about 3 other people. I think it was at the tail end of Wolves being a regular stop off for tour bookers before Birmingham had a better variety of mid sized venues... 2001/2/3/4. The Snow Patrol one was like a week before they got the new band and became absolutely huge which was and is pretty funny to me.

at Reading TUC Club (which I now believe is the Face Bar). Me and a mate turned up, sat in there waiting for the venue to open with only a couple of club regulars to keep us company. Perhaps unsurprisingly the band decided not to play for just 2 of us.

We went for a pint at The Battle Inn after, which is an experience I'll never forget...

at an HMV instore in Bristol in 1999. They played a three song acoustic set in a tiny corner. About 30 of us there to start with and I think about 10 left during the course of it. Certainly not many of us got our copy of Showbiz signed. Matt Bellamy signed the "y" of his name with a series of loops and squiggles, like you do at school when first practising a signature. I suspect he doesn't do that anymore...

So you nearly had me banging on about the horrific gig experience Runrig at the Carlisle Sands Centre in 1991. But anyway.

I've been to plenty of sparsely attended gigs in my time, but two spring to mind because they are amongst my favourite gigs of all time, and both happened in the same week in 2007-ish:

Vialka at the Hull Adelphi
and
Gallon Drunk at the Doncaster Leopard.

I was living in Leeds at the time so it was a pretty big effort for me to get to the shows. The public of Hull/Doncaster were a bit more apathetic with the attendance for both shows in single numbers. But both bands really put their back into the performances and both played blinders.

a few years ago at the Roundhouse - midway through the night was MF Doom's first UK performance and the place was rammed to capacity. When he finished, virtually everybody left. Matthew Herbert did a Techno DJ set to about 200 people I'd guess? By the time I left midway through Roska's set, there were maybe 20 people left in the cavernous environs of the Roundhouse.

It was at the time when we were young enough and stupid enough to get the train from Worcester to Birmingham after school and watch any band we'd ever heard of.

It was a freezing tuesday night in December and the crowd comprised the three members of the support band, us four and a weird bloke who even knew the words to songs that they'd never played before. We didn't really know any of their songs and it was all a bit awkward but the frontman wrote me a note explaining why I hadn't done my homework for the next day, and their set was alright, I suppose.

At the Tunbridge Wells Forum - there must have been 15 people milling around...Great band and a fantastic set, just a crime it was so deserted.

Also Imperial Teen at the Iron Horse in Northampton, MA. It was 2000 and just after their winter tour with Hole/Marilyn Manson had been canned. Probably no more than 30 people there. Made sense I suppose as the tour was so hastily organised. That line in 'You're One' - "We played a show and no-one came/ We played and played it all the same" - was pretty well received by all of us in attendance!

They just got lost in all the other shows around the Fringe in August and they played Glasgow the night before

I was quite surprised as they are quite a big band that if booked around another time would see more people. As I get old I would admit that bands of smaller size would probably draw a bigger crowd in Glasgow.

Lily Allen had to downsize from 2500 to a dingy venue years ago so It just depends but from a band’s POV it would be wiser to play Glasgow

plus I can't take her serious after the hipster runoff articles which take the utter
piss out of her. on the other hand i'm thinking about seeing Saint Etienne with
Scritti Politti supporting in Dec @ liquid rooms

at the Edinburgh Festival one year. I was the only person there, and they knew there was a reviewer coming. I went to sit in the second row and they asked me to move to the first row. All I remember thinking during the first song was, "Do I clap at the end of this, or just say 'well done'?" They were nice chaps and they gave me a CD at the end. God knows if anyone went to see them at their second show.

Also, I went to see Hyde + Beast (Dave off of The Futureheads' side-project) at The Harley in Sheffield this year and I counted 18 people in the audience. Four of them had been in the support band. Shame too, because the gig itself was class.

saw 'em open(!) for a friends band right before that debut came out. literally nobody watching them play despite impressive light show, stage fog, the whole bit. dragged a stool down to the front, parked myself stage center and enjoyed what I imagined to be my own personal gig. they thanked me afterwards.

If you take away the people who had come down with the support bands there were maybe 10 people there to actually see them, just to add insult to injury the drummer was horrendously ill and they had to cut the set short (looked like he kept going off-beat in the first few songs as he was trying not to hurl). I'd waited 14 years to see them too :(

York gigs in general tend to be horribly poorly attended, I've seen a Napoleon III gig where the teenagers who had come to see their mates in the second support band gradually filtered out during his set, leaving just my mate (the first support act) and I by the end, also saw Snow Patrol (2nd album tour) play to about 20 people here

was really badly attended as well. They didn't look happy. They're back in February for more though, so I hope more people turn up.

Sad really, as their new album is actually way better than the first. I don't say that lightly - the debut should have been a single album and have included Best Wishes and I'll Show You Mine, then it would have been a classic.

Myself, John renbourn and a few people that booked him. I arrived early and after he finished his sound check he sat at my table and I couldn't work up the courage to talk to him. He played for a 3 hours, the greatest thing I have ever seen.

play in the bar at the Academy in Glasgow to maybe 150 people, maybe less maybe a bit more (I'm assuming it was supposed have been booked into the main room as it'd be really weird to book a show in the bar of the Academy). It was aff the scale good though.

Most memorable -
We supported Jeniferever in a AWFUL toilet venue in Sheffield that doesn't even exist anymore. Literally about eight people there. I remember sat on the floor watching em. Absolutely stunning.
Saw Mew supporting Ok Go at the Leadmill. Ok Go stood and watched Mew at the back of the room next to me and said they wished they didn't have to follow em. About fifteen in the room when they were on.

where it was me, his bandmates wife and parents and friend of the third bandmember there. Someone wandered into the pub in teh second half and and sat as far away as he could, fairly modest band but kinda felt for him

I was one of those 6. I can remember a frantic PR outside trying to beg random people in off the street. They were supposed to play much earlier but had to reschedule to 3am or something, and the Social was the other end of town to the other venues.

Small pub, Sunday evening, a few people eating dinner and some of them were visibly pissed off that a band was about to play & ruin their conversation. I'd never heard of them, and to tell the truth they weren't all that great, but I did like the way they won over the crowd and turned it into less of a "gig" than a bunch of friends jamming at your (small, sparsely-attended) party. Robert Forster was asking people to give them a topic and they'd play a song about it.

which was an end-of-year party for an art college. It was held in a big warehouse full of final-year artworks, lots of cool sculptures & installations, and maybe 200 people milling about, all very art-studenty and attitudinous. We were up first, supporting the headlining band, and within about five songs we'd emptied the place. The other band were fucking pissed off.

is st vincent at wireless festival with full band. only 12 of us watching. great lineup that was- kanye, q-tip, young jeezy and ratatat too, all of whom had many more people watching. later that summer, see st vincent at route du rock with a big audience and think it was a solo show, maybe 1 other musician. funny contrast, the hyde park show was much better.

Must have been a couple of weeks after The Midnight Organ Fight, they'd played a rammed Oran Mor the night before in Glasgow. About 15 people turned up. When they played a Freshers week event at Dundee Uni about 5 months later you couldn't move and I've since heard Scott say that Freshers gig is one of their favourites. The difference a Summer can make...

around '92 or '93. 15 people there at most, about ten of which were obviously mates of the support band cos they left the minute they stopped playing.

Was the Psycho's first gig of a European tour after arriving from Australia, but if they were in any way gutted they didn't show it; played an absolute blinder, stepped off the stage into the crowd at the end and bought everyone left a beer!

Shortly before or after they released Rice is Nice, I think. Supporting Union Kid who never made it because of that year's petrol strikes. I think there might have been 10 people there if I'm generous.

Still, they were stunning.

Also, saw Chesney Hawkes play Luminaire two or three years ago. I think there might have been 50 people there. He wasn't at all grumpy about the turnout, just ripped the piss out of himself a lot, and was actually a bit of a dude. 10 points to Chezzer.

The first band on the NME stage one of the days, not Rolo Tomassi, one of the other two. About 15 people there, they laughed it off at first but it was sad to see their slow decline as they gradually got more and more pissed off and ended up with the singer ranting at the people who had turned up, most of whom were sat down at the back of the front section. I cried

you know in the thekla there's two benches on opposite sides of the room? i was lying down on one bench, alone, two girls sat together on the other bench. nobody else on the floor or at the bar. 3 people.

then towards the end a few guys turned up and started shouting COME ON PLAY A FEW MORE when the 30 minute set ended

Biffy Clyro playing the Hi-Dive in Denver (Puzzle tour) maybe 35-40 people tops. Si gave me his set list after the show as they were breaking down their stuff and I got a drumstick handed to me from Ben, got swag signed, etc etc. They were so appreciative for the lot that DID show up. Total class!

They were booked to headline some awful 4-band uni band-soc night which the organiser didn't bother doing any promotion for, about 50 students turned up to see their mates play and mostly buggered off after, plus about five of us to actually watch Mclusky. Turned into an utter treat as it was basically 45 minutes of a visibly riled Falco tearing into the promoter, the shit bands on earlier & students in general, plus John frequently using his bass as a pogo stick

About 10 minutes before they started there must have been 5 of us stood by their kits looking nervous, it was an intimidating prospect. Maybe 5-10 others showed up by the time they started and it was an incredible set.

think Shitmat earlier that year just about undercut it for least number of paying customers for anything I/we promoted. there were four or five other decent/vaguely competing shows in the area that night which is very unusual for somewhere the size of Cardiff.

Foot Village came back last year and played to more people and were rad again

to be fair it was actually an Assembly Now gig but they were kicked off the bill for not soundchecking so Yeasayer were the headline act and they played to about ten people. This was around the time of All Hour Cymbals, and to be fair they were really good they still gave it everything

they just turned up too late to soundcheck and the Cockpit refused to let them play. I think that's what happened anyway. Yeasayer were still amazing though, first time I'd ever seen a band play to a crowd that small.

Their last tour they played ABC in Glasgow, it wasn't very busy and as a result the sound was pretty awful. Sad really, great band deserved a better send off. Was good to see that the rest of the shows on the tour were well attended and the crowds seemed to go mental.

played to about 10 people in the 200 capacity Hare & Hounds, most of which were the other band members, which was a massive shame as they were both really good. Most other times they'd have pulled a reasonable crowd (Thought Forms went down well in Brum at Supersonic in 2009) but it was an odd August Monday after a load of other stuff had been on over the weekend.

but Magic Hour @ The Garage in the mid-90's had a really poor turnout (20 or so?), probably not helped by being their 3rd gig in London in a week. That was probably beat by The Leaving Trains @ the George Robey, sometime in the late-80's/early 90's, which had something like 13 people there, a couple of whom I didn't know at the time, but became friends years later.

we only did the Monday after the Godspeed! Nightmare but it was completely dead, very eerie. Shame as the music was brilliant (Cave, White Hills, Hallogallo etc). God knows what it was like on the other days.

Must have been about 25 people there. Was back when the drummer from The Decemberists was one of the Jicks on the Pig Lib tour. The even came back out and did an encore of Jenny & The Ess-Dog with everyone playing the wrong instrument whilst the drummer re-enacted the song in a literal fashion throught the medium of mime.

As they finished, Malkmus hopped off the stage towards the crowd yet no-one seemed to want to talk to him. As he walked through I said hi and he stopped a while for a chat. Felt bad for him, though from a selfish perspective was still a great show!

First was Dj Shadown in Liverpool Uni on the Outsider tour. He had already sold out two Manchester dates then decided to announce a Liverpool one - there was about 30 of us there but it was one of the best gigs ever, everyone was really into it and Shadow seemed to have an amazing time. Met him afterwards and he was really into the show.

Also, !!! had announced a Liverpool date after the others had gone on sale so they played in a Stanley Theatre (400 cap) to around 25 of us on a sunday night halloween a couple of years ago. Apparently the promoters tried to pull it but the band still wanted to play it. The singer spent the whole time in the crowd dancing with everyone individually. They then came on for the encore dressed in leather and done a cover of Relax by Frankie Goes To Hollywood which they said were 'The best band to come from Liverpool' - It was an amazing show! Fair play to em...

About 20 of us. I know we all laugh at Mumfords these days, but it was one of their first ever live shows, and you could hear a pin drop from the start of their set to the end. I was blown away, to be honest (please don't shoot me). Johnny was great, too.

Then Mumfords opening The Park Stage at midday that year and there were about three of us.

In terms of attendance it was really low, probably around 15 people. But it was an amazing gig.

The support band (Noblesse Oblige) was good. The Irrepressibles were amazing. At first I felt like crying a bit - both because of how beautiful it was, but also the fact that there weren't more people there..something about true beauty/art going by almost unnoticed. But for the few people there, it was an incredible gig. After the concert I started thinking that maybe this is how it's supposed to be sometimes. Some things are meant to be hidden and appreciated by few.

(I heard that other stops in their tour however had much higher attendance)

Not nearly as bad as some of these stories, but the only one I've got. I'd missed them playing Edinburgh twice before and was determined to go and see them this time. Turns out it wasn't really a proper gig - it was just bands put on before the club night they were having afterwards. Cab Vol also has two rooms, so people were constantly traipsing across the middle of the gig space just to get to the other room. As a result the room, even though it look full, probably only had like 40 people who were genuinely just there for HCDP. Sad in a way, but they were fun and good-natured, as I imagine they always are

Went to the last night of between Godspeed and B&S, despite having been at Godspeed and not going to B&S. At one point it was supposed to be Corrupted playing, instead Urfaust came over specially from Germany and YOB flew in from Oregon just for that one show.

10 people were there, maybe? There were another 3 or 4 early for B&S that turned up to watch Moon Duo and left during them.

Lots of poorly attended shows at the Cube in Bristol on my card as well - David Grubbs, Mount Eerie (might have been The Microphones, was just as Mount Eerie the album had come out and Phil was changing the name) and David Thomas (out of Pere Ubu) with around 50, and a Brother Danielson show (tree costume and all) which had more Cube staffers there than paying customers.